Social Influence or social hypnosis

According to a recent Gallup poll 62% said that social media posts had no influence at all in their purchase decisions. Gallup.com

I agree with most of it, I think this is a topic you can easily mold to your objective. It’s all about referencing the right kind of question. No one gets on social media “to buy” a product/service. I’m sure you’re not reading this article with your hand on your credit card either. For the most part the poll got it right with the assumption that we don’t use social media to go shopping. But in general we don’t walk around all day thinking about buying something either…

However, in both examples, online or off, we are in fact constantly being influenced even when we don’t know we are or want to be. Our desires to buy something we don’t specifically need such as anything other than food, shelter, and general necessities, are always influenced by someone. Where that influence takes place is often in our subconscious.

According to another study buy ISPO, 90% of all purchasing decisions are made subconsciously. That’s about 9,000 of the approximately 10,000 decisions we make every day! I had no idea I made more than about10… ispo.com

Of those decisionsour mind tends to make for us, every few minutes or so, a majority of them areemotionally invoked according toGeorge Loewenstein, a behavioral economist. Being Social is an emotional activity and social media eliminates a majority of the negative emotions often associated with off line social activities resulting in a whole lot of room for happy emotional decision making. Something we often like to do when we are happy is, you guessed it, shop! Another statisticis that about 62% of us have made a purchase just simply to feel better. The study, published in the Journal of Psychology and Marketing in the U.S., concluded: ‘Retail therapy purchases were overwhelmingly beneficial, leading to mood boosts and no regrets or guilt.’

Do we get onto social networks to buy? Not really. Do we end upinfluenced to buy something once we’re there? I think more than anything else we do throughout the day.